UW Presence to Be Strong at ESA's Annual Meeting

More than 30 University of Wyoming faculty, staff and
students will present their research findings at the 97th annual
meeting of the Ecological Society of America
Aug. 5-10 in Portland, Ore.

A number of the research topics are relevant to Wyoming. Managing greater sage grouse nesting habitat; the reduction of elk calves in
areas where large predators, such as grizzly bears and wolves, have been
restored and/or reintroduced; rangeland assessment as it pertains to food
production challenges; and the negative effect of the mountain pine beetle
epidemic on the mortality of lodge pole pines in Medicine Bow National Forest are some of the
subjects UW presenters will cover in either oral or poster presentations.

“I would definitely put the University of Wyoming in the
high end (of presenter numbers), in the top 25 or 30,” says Liza Lester,
communications officer for ESA. “UW is one of the big ecology schools.”

Approximately 4,000 individuals are scheduled to attend the
annual meeting, dubbed “Life on Earth: Preserving, Utilizing and Sustaining our
Ecosystems.” The gathering will take place at the Oregon Convention Center.

Examining Wyoming’s
ecology

Arthur Middleton, a UW doctoral candidate in ecology who
will graduate in August, plans to present an oral paper, which focuses on whether
predators (wolves) affect the feeding behavior, nutrition and even reproduction
of their prey, in this case, elk.

“We spent four years studying this question in northwest
Wyoming and, although we detected clear influences of wolves on elk behavior,
these effects were not large enough to influence elk body-fat levels and
pregnancy rates,” says Middleton, of Charleston, S.C. “Instead, we found that
high rates of grizzly bear predation on elk calves -- compounded by drought
impacts that reduce elk pregnancy rates -- better explain recent declines in
the productivity of the elk in the northeastern portion of the Greater
Yellowstone Ecosystem. Although wolves are clearly a contributing factor, their
influence is by killing elk, not ‘harassing’ them.”

Rangeland assessment and its relationship to food production
challenges is the subject of Kristie Maczko’s Sustainable Rangelands Roundtable
(SRR) poster presentation.

Food production derived from U.S. rangelands will face
challenges from changing land-use priorities, population growth, loss of open
agricultural spaces, policy shifts and climate change, says Maczko, a research
scientist with UW’s Ecosystem Science & Management Department. Climate
change may include rising temperatures, variable rainfall patterns, frequency
of extreme weather, severity of invasive species and pest infestations, and
changes in livestock forage quantity and quality.

“Rangelands’ contributions to goods and services that people
depend upon are often overlooked because of measurement complexities and
inconsistent data,” she says. “The ability to accurately assess rangeland
systems becomes more important as issues confronting food production continue
to increase in the U.S. and around the world.”

Amarina Wuenschel, from Boise, Idaho, will present an oral
paper that examines the links between ecological site differences and the characteristics
of greater sage grouse nesting habitat.

“Ecological sites are being used by public land management
agencies as the foundation for management,” says Wuenschel, a master’s
candidate of rangeland ecology and watershed management in UW’s Department of Ecosystem
and Science Management. “However, links to wildlife habitat are currently not
well described.”

She says ecological sites are land classification units
that describe soils, hydrology and vegetation, and provide a basis for
understanding ecosystem function. During her research, Wuenschel examined
vegetation components, such as sagebrush cover and height, which are important
to sage grouse habitat. She compared those to non-nesting sites to learn if
nesting habitat is more reliable on particular ecological sites.

Wuenschel learned that ecological sites may differ in being
able to support nesting habitat and that some ecological sites within sagebrush
ecosystems may be unable to produce the vegetation required in habitat
guidelines.

David Reed, a doctoral student in ecology within UW’s
Department of Atmospheric Science, has been studying the ecosystem response to
the pine beetle outbreak at a field site in the Chimney Park area in Medicine Bow. His paper focuses on measuring the net exchange of carbon dioxide, water vapor and
energy between the ecosystem and the lower atmosphere.

After three years of measurements, Reed says he and other
collaborators have seen large changes at the forest’s stand level. Stands that
have low mortality show ecosystem processes that control water cycling and
carbon uptake that are largely unchanged, he says. By comparison, in stands
that have a high mortality, there is an increase in relative soil water and
light that reaches the ground. This has caused improved conditions for
understory growth.

“What this means is, that even though mortality rate is high
(78 percent during summer 2011), we are seeing signs that the forest understory
on the surviving trees in the ecosystem are taking up much of the slack from
the majority of dead trees in the forest,” says Reed, of Portland, Mich. “In
terms of carbon and recycling, there isn’t as large of a disturbance as
predicted.”

An opportunity to
share

According to its website, the ESA is a nonpartisan,
nonprofit organization of scientists founded in 1915. With offices based in
Washington, D.C., its mission is to promote ecological science by improving
communication among ecologists; raise the public’s awareness level of the
importance of ecological science; and ensure the appropriate use of ecological
science in environmental decision making by enhancing communications between
the ecological community and policy makers.

“I think the value of research is increased, in
part, by sharing it with diverse audiences and forums such as the ESA,” Wuenschel says.

Middleton, who will begin a post-doctoral fellowship at Yale
this fall, says the annual meeting is significant because it allows UW
researchers to report their predation findings from studying an intact large
mammal system to other scientists conducting similar studies (on amphibians and
insects) at smaller scales. In addition, the research is relevant to the
conservation and management of large mammals in Wyoming and other states in the
region, and could help those wildlife managers who are facing similar issues
elsewhere, he says.